


Authority

by Fwiffo



Series: Like Chasers [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-05
Updated: 2011-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:35:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fwiffo/pseuds/Fwiffo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You need that status quo.  The vacant stare you give him as you walk in the door, his unresponsive body language to your entrance, the gruff greeting he gives you as he buries his head in a book or taxes or any number of things sprawled across the kitchen table (not that you've eaten together at the table recently).  It's the cycle you two repeat day in and day out.  It's your routine, your lifestyle.  It's comfortable.</p><p>AU Fic in which Exiles are their respective Kid/Troll's adoptive parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Authority

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carolynne](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Carolynne).



Back in grammar school, everyone envied your father. Or rather, they envied the fact that your dad had the absolute coolest job in the world. To them, there was nothing better than your dad being a cop. Except if he was an astronaut, of course.

But your father wasn't an astronaut, he was a cop. He still is a cop. For as long as you've known him, that is to say the entirety your life, he's been a cop. He works nights, he works weekends, he works weekdays. In your mind, there isn't a speck of time where he isn't working.

You're not upset about that. A man has got to work. The head of the house should provide for everyone else, that sort of jazz. You get it.

But what he doesn't get is you. He doesn't understand how you work, how you tick. He never has and you figure he never will. That's fine with you. As long as he continues to ignore you until, in his eyes, you fuck up, that's fine. As long as you backtalk him or do anything else he deems the "actions of a delinquent", it's fine. It's the status quo, and you're more and alright with it.

You need that status quo. Both of you do and you've realized this a long time ago. The vacant stare you give him as you walk in the door, his unresponsive body language to your entrance, the gruff greeting he gives you as he buries his head in a book or taxes or any number of things sprawled across the kitchen table (not that you've eaten together at the table recently). It's the cycle you two repeat day in and day out. It's your routine, your lifestyle. It's comfortable.

But of course, there are bumps in your routine, such as the days you come home late. When you do stay out, it's deliberate. Your father is going to react the same way to you coming home two minutes or two hours late. So you prolong whatever bit time away from him you have.

These are the moments where you enjoy your life the most. It's where you feel at peace. The realization that when you go home you're going be greeted with an angry faced dictator who wants nothing but order in his household doesn't bother you. Laying in the grass out in the schoolyard, looking up the sky, thinking about whatever comes to mind. No structure, no order. Just a flow and stream of consciousness.

Your consciousness. Your ideas. Not the stuff your father spoon feeds to you day in and day out. When he actually tries to make conversation with you, it's always about your work ethic and how it could always improve. He sometimes says you're doing fine, but he always has to shove in how could just do a bit better. You could always just push yourself a bit more.

"Apply yourself, Dave," he'd say, not looking up from his books. "You lack drive. It's an essential principle to have. Remember that."

You wouldn't say anything in response. You'd give him the same blank look and he never gave you one. But you knew what he was thinking, the glares he wished he could give. But right now he was studying. He had always had a dream to get into law school and become a lawyer or a judge or something. You never really bothered to listen.

Both of you sort of knew that it wasn't going to happen. No matter how hard your dad would try to leave the force, he'd be enticed back with the realization that he needed to pay for your future or that his commitment to you was much more than a commitment to a job he always wanted.

Slowly, slowly you come out of your own thoughts and begin to realize how late it's gotten in the past couple of hours of you just staring. You hadn't noticed the sun setting through your sunglasses, but now you're definitely seeing the difference in the dark of night. There's a part of you that knows that this is the latest you've ever been out without your father's permission. It's both frightening and exciting at the same time.

You entertain the thought of not coming home tonight. Sitting under a tree, straining your eyes to see the stars hidden by lights from the city you live in. Waking up the next morning without a worry or any pressure to deal with someone you could never see eye to eye with. Someone who you felt didn't respect any of your choices. Someone who you felt didn't acknowledge you as a person.

You begin to walk home, dragging your feet on the cement. Your entire body is telling you to just say. Stay out, don't come home. Stay at a friend's. Jam, talk. Do something besides going back. You're a teenager. Inherently there's going to be some angst and some want to be an individual.

But it's not the same feeling you're feeling right now. Desperately, in the back of your mind, you're wishing that you could come home and connect to your dad. In some sort of way, just a bit. Like you could when you were a kid back in grammar school. When your dad was the coolest and you knew. Everyone knew.

When the people around you didn't look down at you for being the son of a pawn of the government. A pig, someone worthless. In the eyes of your peers your dad wasn't someone worth respecting. In the eyes your peers, you were just like him.

You had to change, you had to adapt. You know this, you knew this. You had to. Your friends couldn't think of you as the same rigid demon of the authority that your father happened to be. You had to sever that tie. You did it eloquently. You stopped smiling at him, you distanced yourself both emotionally and psychically.

The more you did, however, the more he tried to pull you back in. At first it was with words of encouragement, then when he found out you had been cutting classes and coming home late, he tightened the leash and added a choke.

And in his mind, there was no way you were ever going to be unhooked.

You reach your apartment as your neighborhood starts to wind down for the night. You know very well that in another part of the city it was just beginning to wind up. You turn the key as quietly as possible and open the door. There aren't any lights on in your apartment and you heave a sigh of relief and wonder if maybe, just maybe your father has already left for work. Or even better, maybe he got called in early so he didn't notice you were out so long. It's a fantasy that is quickly broken.

The lights flash on and you shield your eyes, forgetting you still have on sunglasses. You look towards the switch and you see your father. Hunched over, puffed up, red in the face.

You know this is the angriest he has ever been.

Your calm face quivers for a moment, a small break in your usual expression. Quickly, you recover, staring into his eyes through your tinted lenses. He asks you where have you been. You respond.

"Out."

And that's it. That's all he needs to start screaming at you, hand occasionally banging the wall in rage. The words he's throwing at you hurt. They hurt a lot more than you can ever let him know. You feel your gut starting to turn as you stand silently on the frontlines of his barrage of words.

When he's finished and without skipping a beat, you as evenly as you can walk towards your room. He screams at you to come back, that he's not finished with you yet. That how dare you disrespect his authority in his household. You don't look back when you speak.

"And this is the reason why I didn't want to come home."

You close the door to your room. Surprisingly, there's silence on the other end of the door. You begin to hear shuffling of papers and ringing of keys. The front door opens and then slams. If your dad screaming didn't wake up the building, the door certainly did.

You wait. You make absolutely sure he's gone. Then, you poke your head out. His cap is missing, along with his gun and all of the rest of his work supplies. He must be working late tonight, meaning that at four thirty am he'd walk in the door. You always woke up when he did this, just another annoyance to deal with.

Going back into your room, you realize there's not much to do now. Talking to your friends on the computer right now doesn't seem like the right thing to do, neither does watching TV. Sleep becomes the next best option. You change into your underwear and crawl under the covers, not realizing how tired you actually were until your head hits the pillow.

You awake hours later. Not to the noise of your father coming in, but to loud rapping on the door. You glance at the clock. It's almost five thirty and you know, you know your father isn't home yet. You would have smelt him in the kitchen preparing a meal before he slept for the rest of the day. If he was home, that is.

Now, you smell nothing, you hear nothing. Against your better judgment and demeanor, you begin to worry. The pounding begins again and you slip on some clothes, cautiously moving towards the door. When you arrive, you almost don't want to open it. But curiosity and common courtesy dictate that you should.

So you do.

For a split second, against all of your previous attitudes towards him, you hope that it's your father. Sadly, and you really do mean sadly, it's not your father at the door.

It's his partner.


End file.
